Possible job opportunity in another country while finishing up K1 process, curious if this is even possible...

[chummers36 2]

Hi All,

 

We're getting pretty close to finishing up our K1 Visa process, we have our NVC case number and are finishing up our last steps.  I haven't read to much on the next part for after she get here, other than seeing that it looks to take a while for the I-485 (AOS) portion.   However, I was recently offered a possible position in another country (Australia) that would have a work visa sponsorship for me, but not sure how that (or could) work for bringing over my soon to be wife?   Anybody ever seen anything similar to this... 

[aleful 1,905]

Spoiler

 

 

nope, if you aren't going to live in the US. withdraw the K1, marry your fiancé and move to Australia

 

the k1 is for marrying, adjusting status and living in the US.

[dentsflogged 352]

2 hours ago, aleful said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

nope, if you aren't going to live in the US. withdraw the K1, marry your fiancé and move to Australia

 

the k1 is for marrying, adjusting status and living in the US.

Basically this.

 

Incoming wall of text - all said in good faith to help you make a decision NOT to try and scare you off moving to Australia - I personally love it here, but I'm told by Americans I know who moved here that it's a huge shock for some of the stuff I mention below. 

 

Firstly: Check your job offer carefully.  Confirm the wage and find out if it's including or excluding Superannuation (basically like retirement). Once you've done that, plug it into this calculator: http://www.paycalculator.com.au/ and find out what your actual take-home pay will be, minus tax, etc.  Then check the rental prices/house purchase prices in the area that you'd be living and see if it's a living wage without having to dip into your savings for day to day expenses.

Take into account that cost of living in Australia is far more expensive than the USA, for things that you don't expect. 
 

Eating out: the average "basic" restaurant (like burgers, pizza etc) you're looking AU$20 per meal, per person. Plus drinks.  Also there's no such thing as free refills on coffee or soda here - expect to pay AU$3-$5 per drink every single time. 
 

Groceries:  run the gamut of both more expensive and less expensive than the US, depending on what you are looking for.  Also it's next to impossible to get brands that you're used to here unless you're willing to pay 3-4x the actual cost of them from one company that imports things, often is out of stock, and more often than not things arrive out of date. (eg: when my partner was here and wanted Cheerios, I drove across town to buy a box of them... AU$14 for the single box of cereal AND it only had a month left in code)

Drinks:  on the topic of drinks - if you drink alcohol, expect to pay 50% more if you're drinking out (bars will charge between $5-$9 during happy hour for a shot of spirit (30ml in Australia vs 50ml in USA) + mixer, $10 for a pint of "cheap" beer) and more than double if you just want to grab a bottle of something on the way home.   For example, a 700ml bottle of Captain Morgan rum is $40.00 in Australia vs. $15 in the USA.    Soda is worse - a 12 pack of coke in the USA can be as little as $4 on special, but I've never paid less than $10 per 12 pack here.  

 

Cars and Transport: Cars here are ridiculously expensive. I paid $15,000 for a car (Ford Focus) that I could have bought in the USA for $8,000 for the exact same year/model.  New cars are even worse.  Gas is very expensive - we have a "cycle" (used to be weekly, now getting close to monthly) where it will go up HUGELY right before holiday weekends (as in, a jump of more than 50c at a time) - right now, it's about $1.49 per liter.  This works out to being about $5.60 per gallon.   Public transport (at least in the 2 major cities I have lived in) is either almost non-existent (my original city - you'd wait an hour between buses in some places, and sometimes they just wouldn't turn up) or expensive but very poor in others (my current city - where it's now over $4 for a one-way trip on the train... and trains which are running late will start skipping stations that they are scheduled to stop at in order to meet the "on time performance" requirement - never mind the people who needed to jump out at those stops now being made late.

 

Internet and phones: Internet painfully slow in most areas (Google Australia's NBN if you want to fall down the rabbit hole) and horrendously expensive.  Oh, and expect to have data limits on both your home broadband service and mobile data service. I pay $95 per month for 500gb on 100mb/s on my home broadband service.  I'm one of the very very lucky people who can get those speeds. The average speed of Australian broadband is 10mbps. Mobile phone plans are also expensive (if you want good coverage that is - there are some places where you can be in the middle of the city and not get coverage with specific carriers)

 

Streaming and digital content: Don't expect to be able to access things you're used to in the USA - Amazon has just launched Prime here, and the Prime Video content was not active yet when I tried (in December). Prime also won't allow you to purchase content to watch while within Australia - even using your US bank card details, it picks up the IP and blocks the video.  Also Netflix has probably 1/3 of the content available in Australia vs. the USA and VPN/Proxy's no longer work with it easily - I've gone through ~5 of them in the last 3 months and they rarely last for more than a week before Netflix picks up on it being a VPN.  

There's a lot more I could compare and contrast. But it's not all bad news!! 

Australia is a freaking AMAZING country. 

We have wonderful weather, fantastic working conditions (even the most basic full time job comes with 4 weeks paid vacation per year, a minimum of 10 days paid sick leave - in addition to vacation - per year, and 3 months fully paid maternity leave after you've worked there for 12 months).

 

The people are lovely (if I do say so myself) and the bigger cities (Melbourne especially) have got so much going on between arts, cultural stuff, museums, conventions, meet ups, sporting events and music that you'll never be bored. 

There's so much natural beauty to see, and it's all pretty close to major cities. We do cultural foods really well (because we are so multicultural) and we do specialty foods really well, chocolate cafes are a particular favourite here.   Our coffee is amazing (no offense to the USA, but the stuff they serve at Starbucks is NOT coffee!) and big cities have a great "brunch culture" if you're into that.  

 

Fresh food is so easy and fun to get (plenty of farmers markets in most major cities).

 

Many companies offer great work/life balance - big ones especially will give a little leeway in working times - mine for example allows anyone in my role to chose my start time between 7.30am and 10am. Some will allow flexible working in terms of working 4 x 10 hour shifts rather than 5 x 8, or working from home for a day or two a week if possible and such. 

 

 

Edited January 28, 2018 by dentsflogged

[Jojo92122 1,924]

On 1/27/2018 at 9:15 PM, chummers36 said:

Hi All,

 

We're getting pretty close to finishing up our K1 Visa process, we have our NVC case number and are finishing up our last steps.  I haven't read to much on the next part for after she get here, other than seeing that it looks to take a while for the I-485 (AOS) portion.   However, I was recently offered a possible position in another country (Australia) that would have a work visa sponsorship for me, but not sure how that (or could) work for bringing over my soon to be wife?   Anybody ever seen anything similar to this... 

You will need to discuss with your potential AUS employer about bringing your future wife there.

 

Moving to AUS may not be compatible with the long AOS process and maintaining US green card status.  A green card is not a tourist visa where the holder can live abroad with occasional visits to the US.  A green card holder is required to live in the US.  Google maintaining LPR status.

[Lilyvick 0]

I'd argue about VPN services. I use Nord VPN for streaming and have no complains about it. Check this site if you have any issues about living in Australia.